Anberlin: Interview

"All good things must come to an end" sadly is a phrase that applies to beloved rock band Anberlin. Drummer Nate Young tells fervr about The Final Tour (AKA the ‘victory lap’), the highlights of the band’s career and what the guys are doing next.

Firstly Nate, how much do you love Australia?

For me, it’s my favourite place to tour—we’ve been back like twelve times. For us, we looooove it. Every time we go there, it gets better and better and better.

Okay. Now, can you tell us about the latest and final album, Lowborn?

We wanted it to be a full body of work. We didn’t want somebody who’d never heard Anberlin to pick up that album and be like ‘Oh, this is the band’s final album’. We wanted to continue to sound like we were progressing and keeping on the same path. We didn’t rehash any old B-sides or songs we knew people liked or put out an album full of songs that sounded like our biggest songs—we wanted to push ourselves. As far as a theme, I don’t know if there actually is one, except that the theme would be us just really being fearless and going for it.

How did this being your final album affect making it?

Yeah, in a lot of ways it was good. We didn’t have to think about anything as far as what people expected—it was kind of there in the beginning but we just threw all of that out and decided to just make a record that we wanted to make. I think people can hear that we weren’t trying to please a specific group of people, we were just writing the best songs we could and being as creative as we could, with the time that we had. I thought it was really cool to have this ‘no fear’ mindset when making a record and I think that can only come with knowing it’s your final record.

What’s led to Anberlin finishing up?

Honestly, I think when the discussion started happening, we had said and done everything we had wanted to do. We never even thought we’d put out this many records; some of our favourite bands only have like three or four albums, so for us to have seven was mind-blowing. We’ve accomplished and done more than we ever dreamed of so it just felt like time, you know. We wanted to make sure that we went out while people still cared and were excited about what was happening, not fading out slowly. We looked into the future and could see us becoming one of those bands where our heart’s not in it and it kind of fades away. We didn’t want that to happen so we decided to call it this year and have it be more of a victory lap rather than us slowly dying or fading away. And then we can enjoy it—every show, every tour we do—we know it’s our last one so we can be really excited about it.

How is the tour about your fans?

So that was the other thing, we felt like we owed it to them—it’s bigger than just us—and we wanted to take the year and just really say thank you to every fan and make sure they know how thankful we are and that we didn’t take any of them for granted. Being able to tour, live our dream and play music—if people didn’t care and buy our records and didn’t come to shows, then we couldn’t do it. So really, it’s all them and so we wanted to make sure that we took the time to make sure they knew we were so thankful.

How has Anberlin grown and changed over the years?

Starting as young as we did, obviously we’re going to grow and change a lot over the years especially [after] the things we’ve gone through in life and learnt. Just starting young and all of us singles, then meeting our wives and being married, then some of us having kids—all of those things are going to change us … It’s going to affect the way we write music and the way we tour and everything. Everything we’ve gone through is going to affect us for sure, some good and some bad, you just take it—it’s just life. It’s about growing with each other, and being close, and so we always would talk about things and kind of hash things out. So for us, we’ve definitely grown a ton since we started Anberlin.

What have been the highlights of your career?

Oh man, that’s kind of hard to wrap up. Just playing music together was all we cared about at the beginning. So even just the little stuff of being able to play a show in front of anyone was already the biggest accomplishment. And then getting signed to our original label was mind-blowing to us. So for us, we’ve already accomplished everything that we ever dreamed of, so I’d say all of that is the highlight of my career.

How has being Christians affected your music and career?

You may have to talk to everyone [else in the band] but for me, it is me, and it’s what breathes through me, so for me it’s going to affect every part of my life, whether it’s music or how I treat people or how I carry myself. So anything that I do is going to have that be the underlining thing. It’s so real in my life and it’s the most important thing, so hopefully it seeps through me in everything that I do. It’s the biggest inspiration in my life and so everything that I put my creative touch on is coming from that. So for me it’s very, very much the biggest part of anything that I do in my life.

What is next for you guys?

Everyone is going to be doing different things. For me, I’m planning on starting a coffee company with my brother-in-law in Tampa. We’re going to open a spot and we’ve been roasting our own stuff. And then I’ll always work in music somewhere, whether that’s playing on our friends’ records or writing music with other people, I’ll always have to continue with music.

Do you think you guys will keep in touch once you finish?

Oh, yeah. Oh, of course. Deon and Christian live about twenty minutes from each other, so I’ll see them all the time. We’ll all keep in touch and all be great friends. You can’t really, basically live together for twelve plus years and then not be; you either become the worst enemies or you become really close and life-long friends—and that’s us for sure.

What message would you like to leave for your fans?

Touring from such a young age, I was very fortunate and very thankful to be surrounded by great guys and people that really cared about me. Being on a world tour and seeing a younger generation coming up, I just want to say—I don’t mean to sound so old and wisdomy—but don’t just follow what everyone else is doing; following the path and doing this because you think you’re supposed to, or you think you have to, or you have to do this to fit in with a certain group, or to feel cool.

For me, I hit a crossroads in life about which paths I was going to take and I’m really thankful for the ones that I did. I found something much, much bigger than just a path. It was very distinctive what it was, and what I found was Truth and Hope and Grace and Peace. So I’d say to younger fans, just search and look and not settle with what other people are doing. And I think it’s good to ask questions and I think it’s good to search and to not just settle and fall into this lazy place and this attitude of ‘everything should be handed to you’ or that ‘everything should be easy’—it’ll be tough—but I think that if you search and you really, truly dig-in, I believe that you’ll find Truth, so I would just encourage everyone to do that.